they called my maid _sister_, in good time--pressing her hand with
affectionate kindness, it melted me; though I feared from time to time
there must be hypocrisy at bottom of such sugared words, till I caught a
lady of condition yesterday turning to the window, and praying fervently
for the girl's conversion to christianity, all from a tender and pious
emotion of her gentle heart: as notwithstanding their caresses, no man
is more firmly persuaded of a mathematical truth than they are of mine,
and my maid's living in a state of certain and eternal reprobation--_ma
fanno veramente vergogna a noi altri_[Footnote: But they really shame
_even us_.], say they, quite in the spirit of the old Romans, who
thought all nations _barbarous_ except their own.

A woman of quality, near whom I sate at the fine ball Bragadin made two
nights ago in honour of this gay season, enquired how I had passed the
morning. I named several churches I had looked into, particularly that
which they esteem beyond the rest as a favourite work of Palladio, and
called the Redentore. "You do very right," says she, "to look at our
churches, as you have none in England, I know--but then you have so
many other fine things--such charming _steel buttons_ for example;"
pressing my hand to shew that she meant no offence; for, added she, _chi
pensa d'una maniera, chi pensa d'un altra_[Footnote: One person is of
one mind you know, another of another.].

Here are many theatres, the worst infinitely superior to ours; the best,
as far below those of Milan and Turin: but then here are other
diversions, and every one's dependance for pleasure is not placed upon
the opera. They have now thrown up a sort of temporary wall of painted
canvass, in an oval form, within St. Mark's Place, profusely illuminated
round the new-formed walk, which is covered in at top, and adorned with
shops round the right hand side, with pillars to support the canopy; the